Paul Anders - Smug, self-righteous, and holier-than-thou; plus he has a face that only a mother could love, and he's our main protagonist.

Chris Walters - She is a good girl in the wrong place at the wrong time that ends up in a bad place at the right time.

Rita Daniels - Sentenced to imprisonment at Camp 47 because she is a prostitute. What the court intended to change about her by sending her to a place where people are sexually assaulted and degraded on a daily basis is beyond me, but I've never admitted to understanding the legal system anyway.

Dodge - An inmate who experiences life one second slower than the rest of us, because that's how long it takes light to pass through his grotesquely thick glasses.

Griff - Resourceful, violent, and more than a match for most other men. However, he proves to be completely unprepared to deal with an empowered woman who is ready to compete against him on equal terms; especially if the lady has a crossbow.

Tito - What he calls "mildly excessive," the rest of the world considers "crimes against humanity."

Alph - Tito's pet werewolf.

Ritter - The big, bald leader of Camp 47's guards. He likes screaming at people, beating up anybody smaller than he is (which is everybody), and slapping women until they bleed. This is going to come as a surprise to many hopeful women, but he is single.

Jennifer - A mean, skinny, rich b***h who gets killed by her own pyrotechnic crossbow bolt.

Secretary Mallory - Hey pork chop, the next time you pick out a defenseless girl to hunt for sport, maybe you had better choose one that can't run faster than your fat a**.

The Plot:

"Escape 2000" is another story derived from "The Most Dangerous Game." In addition to preaching about how some men (and/or women) lack humanity, this version adds social commentary about blind faith in power, specifically government. The government represented in this movie uses the power entrusted to it by its citizens not to serve the people, but to control them. Of course, this is all for their own good, to keep them safe. That is the only reason people would ever agree to surrendering the freedoms they deserve. Well, that or the threat of harassment, imprisonment, and death. Since this is a violent film about people being brutalized in prison and then hunted for sport, it becomes a satirical version of the latter.

Three people wake up in the back of a truck. No, this is not the start of a joke. That would be three people walking into a bar, and at least one of them has to be a priest. None of these people are priests. The trio is the latest group of prisoners to be assigned to Camp 47, which is not the sort of place anyone volunteers to go. Camp 47 is the most brutal, most remote, and least supervised by human rights groups of the many work camps created by the government to rehabilitate deviant members of the population. However, unlike the other prisons, Camp 47 is not meant to rehabilitate anybody. It's where the government sends people that they just want to get rid of.

Upon arriving at the camp, the new prisoners discover that there are no rules besides complete obedience to the warden and his guards. Whatever Mr. Thatcher and Mr. Ritter say is the law, and disobeying that law is grounds for torture and execution. One unfortunate prisoner tries to escape, but fails to get away. He is forced to wrestle with an open container of kerosene while the guards pummel him. Once the doomed prisoner is completely soaked, Ritter sets him on fire. The man is so beaten, so defeated, that he does not seem to care. Even his screams as he burns alive are more automatic reflex than anything else. That's the extreme nature of Camp 47. Being imprisoned there will kill you and so will attempting to escape, meaning that the only path to deliverance is death.

Depending on your view of the afterlife, that is either a catch-22 or a foregone conclusion.

Paul is unlike the other prisoners, because he is a respected and vocal member of the opposition. The government fears Paul. Killing him would be the easy thing to do, and also the wrong thing to do; he could become a martyr. So, Thatcher has unique plans for his unique prisoner. The cruel warden wants to break Paul, make him grovel and crawl. Unfortunately, Paul thrives on being mistreated by the establishment. Subjecting a man like him to government brutality is like punching a dilatant mixture: it just makes him more resistant to the force applied.

Viva la corn starch!

Compared to Paul, Chris is a pushover. Heck, compared to anybody, Chris is a pushover. Lacking Paul's self-righteous armor and the self-preservation instincts of the other inmates, she is a complete babe in the woods. Thatcher and the others recognize that Paul's strange affection for the girl is the revolutionary's sole weakness. My question is why Paul is attracted to Chris. She is not a member of the opposition, she is weak, and she does not seem particularly bright. In other words, Chris is a fairly average example of the vast majority of citizens who are little more than sheep. The government shears them whenever it wants wool and it butchers them when it wants meat, and the sheep blithely allow this to go on because it's all for their own good. I hate the idea of being a sheep. Even worse, I hate the idea of recognizing I do not want to be a sheep, believing I am not a sheep, but still ending up as a sheep.

Paul's continued presence in the camp becomes too much of a burden. He has to go, because otherwise the rest of the inmates are going to start believing what Paul preaches about freedom, personal responsibility, and taking a stand against the government. One unbreakable dissident is already one too many; fifty of them is unthinkable. The warden and some of his powerful associates are already planning a way to rid the camp of troublemakers and to have a bit of sport doing it. Thatcher, Secretary Mallory, Jennifer, and Tito are going to hunt some of the prisoners. Escape means freedom, but failing to escape means they will be killed.

The hunt is the reason that people watch this film. The entire movie is exploitation, but the hunt itself is so overdone and unrealistic that it is entertaining. None of the prisoners are armed, of course, but the weapons and tactics employed by the hunters are the prime entertainment. Tito drives an ATV with a dozer blade on the front, and he is equipped with both a machine gun and a rocket launcher, but his most impressive weapon is Alph. Alph is a hairy brute that Tito bought from a circus. Did you ever wonder if sideshow freaks really do eat raw meat and really could break a man in half with their bare hands? The answers are yes and yes. Dodge, the unfortunate prisoner that Tito picks for his hunt, discovers this firsthand.

The other prisoners picked for the hunt are Paul (naturally), Chris, Griff, and Rita. Rita does exceptionally poorly, meeting her end at the gloved hands of the sadistic Jennifer without so much as a meow. Griff does a bit better, managing to kill the worst of the guards, but gets trapped between Thatcher's rifle and Jennifer's crossbow. The crossbow does most of the damage, making it all the more humiliating since Griff had acquired an assault rifle from the guard. What Griff should have done is charged that sadistic little termagant and put about twenty holes in her scrawny behind.

Paul and Chris do a lot better than their fallen comrades. Cornered by Tito, Paul manages to trick the rich jerk into accidentally cutting Alph in half with the dozer blade. Pursued by the grief-stricken hunter, Paul saves Chris from the lascivious clutches of Mallory. She returns the favor by saving him from Ritter. You see, Paul tries to outbox Ritter, which does not work very well. In a war of words, Paul easily has the head guard's measure. Remember the old adage about sticks and stones and words? Well, here it is more like "sticks and stones and Ritter's fists will break your bones and words are not going to stop that from happening." Thankfully, Chris uses a machete to chop both of Ritter's hands off. That means he cannot use them to beat Paul into a pulp. It also means he dies.

Shortly thereafter, Paul and Chris ambush Tito and the machete comes in handy once again. Most importantly, the pair gain possession of a dozer-blade-equipped ATV with a top-mounted machine gun and rocket launcher. They use their newfound firepower to launch a surprise attack on Camp 47 while Thatcher is still dealing with the unexpected demise of Secretary Mallory (Paul shot the fat jerk in the groin with a tranquilizer, and then left him to die in a burning cane field). The guards are unprepared for the assault, which escalates as prisoners take the weapons from fallen guards and join the attack. It looks like a scene from "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes," right down to the jumpsuits and muttonchops.

Paul grabs a machine gun during the battle and shoots Thatcher to pieces. Wow! Then government jets bomb the camp and blow everything except the yellow-jumpsuit-wearing rebels to pieces. So much for having a STA team or FAC with eyes on the target area.

As I said, the reason people watch this film is because it contains outlandish depictions of violence. It is just realistic enough to avoid showing it to your grandmother (unless she is an eighty-year-old gorehound), but cartoonish in the way of 1970s and 1980s action films. Do not get me wrong, there is bloody violence, but the violence is so brief and unbelievable that I can't do anything besides laugh at it.

Things I Learned From This Movie:

You should always avoid arguing with the variety of police officer that wears a beret and carries a five-foot-long stick.

Carrying a whip increases your chance of winning an argument by 75%.

Circus performers tend to be hairy, violent, and demonstrably not vegetarian.

The length of a zipper is directly proportional to the likelihood of a man getting his John Thomas caught in it.

Lasik is ruining the beauty of Charles Darwin's mathematical representation of the Theory of Evolution.

The legal term for an English person deported for committing a crime is "Australian."

Most concentration camps have a guard-to-prisoner ratio of three-to-one or greater.

The future of housing is corrugated fiberglass.

Zev Eleftheriou is not an anagram.

Stuff To Watch For:

15 mins - Sean Connery must have taught this guy how to treat a lady.

16 mins - It would be a lot easier if you laid on your back and used your legs to support the weight.

19 mins - RANDOM GRATUITOUS BREAST SHOTS!

46 mins - There are acres of dense jungle to hide in, so why are you electing to expose yourself by slowly climbing that waterfall?

Rita: "We're on our way to a re-ed camp, aren't we?" Paul: "Yeah, they're going to make obedient little citizens out of us." Chris: "Who are? What do you mean?" Paul: "Society." Chris: "But I've never been against society. I didn't do anything; I shouldn't be here."

Jennifer: "Whose target's the big one?" Thatcher: "Mine." Jennifer: "That's not very sporting of you. I thought you said only one apiece." Thatcher: "Griffin is not for sport. He's for execution. Would you like some breakfast?"

Griff: "None of us had a chance when we were picked to play Thatcher's f***ing game!" Rita: "But we just have to stay alive until sunset." Griff: "Bulls**t!" Rita: "It's true. Thatcher said so! He said no one would touch us!" Griff: "Christ, if you believe that you'd believe anything!"

There must be a whole generation of kids who have been imprinted on Olivia Hussey.

For years, the go-to version of Romeo and Juliet was Zeffirelli's 1968 version, which featured a young Olivia Hussey. Hussey is "interesting," and to be presented with her talents in high school English, pre-internet, is an experience I don't think many young men will forget.

I did not find Chris (Olivia Hussey's character) attractive at all. It's probably the characters complete and utter lack of recognition that the government and society are completely screwed. She just goes her way, pretending that everything is hunky-dory. Not so much a "babe in the woods" like she played in "Romeo and Juliet" as "completely clueless."

Whoever they picked to be her body double for the shower scene was an interesting choice. The woman looks to have had children, and was a bit more endowed than Hussey.

Speaking of which, Paul is played by the same actor (Steve Railsback) who hooks up with the incredibly sexy space vampire babe in Lifeforce. What is so special about that guy?

For the other Aussies out there, this is also known as "Turkey Shoot".... features prominently in Tarantino's Ozploitation, too.

Yep, I found a copy of it last fall, while on an Ozploitation kick started by watching Not Quite Hollywood. Absolutely insane movie. Apparently some of the funding dried up while it was in production, so they gave up any attempt at seriousness and went for all-out crazy, violent exploitation.

In addition to Railsback and Mad Max's gay leather daddy, Roger "Fifi" Ward, the werewolf was played by Steve Rackman, who is almost recognizable as Donk from the Crocodile Dundee movies.

Is it just me, or does anyone else have a problem with describing Alph as a werewolf when he very clearly has cat eyes. He strikes me more as a generic beast man. I suppose he's only ever referred to in the movie as a "circus freak." For such a cheesy character, he's actually pretty disturbing to look at, especially when he cheerfully pulls off a guy's toe and pops it in his mouth.